Minority Leader Carr introduces Intro 911A on Staten Island CWZ
Council Member David Carr presents Intro 911A, arguing Staten Island had a functioning commercial carting market that did not need the CWZ program. He expresses concern about reduced consumer choice, local businesses being boxed out, and companies inflating value for sale before fulfilling awards. He urges a pause on CWZ implementation and expanding to six carters for Staten Island.
Thank you, Chair.
I appreciate you having this hearing today, and I really want to commend you on your leadership of the committee throughout the course of this year.
I look forward to continuing to work with you in improving our quality of life across all of our boroughs.
And I just want to welcome our friend here today.
I can promise you my cats, if they were here, would not be as well-behaved as he is.
Commissioner, always a pleasure to see you.
I really appreciate your partnership since you returned to the agency and working on a whole host of issues to improve quality of life for Staten Islanders.
And I really want to thank everyone at the Sanitation Department, particularly in the borough operations in Staten Island and Brooklyn, for the phenomenal job they do each and every week.
Introduction 911A is introduced, I think, to resolve a problem that has arisen as a result of the implementation of the commercial waste zones.
In my view, when I was a part of the work of my predecessor, Steve Mattio, he opposed this legislation because he felt that it was a...
Solution to a problem in some parts of our city, but not one that we were facing in Staten Island and yet created negative externalities for our borough.
We had a perfectly working market situation in Staten Island with respect to commercial carding and
there were not the negative consequences that you're seeing in other places where you had multiple carters serving blocks, different businesses had different contracts, and the negative results that attended to that, namely congestion,
truck traffic and noise at unfortunate hours, and just repeated visits by different trucks on the same block.
That was never something we experienced on Staten Island, and so this is a solution that is great for other parts of the city and not necessarily one that was needed in Staten Island, but we are now limited as Staten Islanders in who we can choose to contract with.
Generally speaking against those kind of market interferences because I think consumers should have a choice that they should have a choice as to who their Carter is and in particular I'm concerned about the possibility
that long-time Staten Island businesses would then be cut out of a market in which they have been ably serving for a number of
years.
Additionally, you know, I'm concerned about one of the other consequences of this legislation, which is that before
a CWZ could even be implemented or before an award could even become operational, you have companies that are seeking to sell before they even begin the work of their award.
And I think that creates the possibility
where an awardee inflates the value of their company in order to be sold and without ever having done any of the work.
And I think that's something that we have to guard against.
We have to protect the department.
We have to protect the taxpayer.
And we have to protect the consumers in each of the zones.
And so that is why I'm putting forward Introduction 911A because I think we need a pause on the implementation of the CWZ.
And I think we also need to make sure that Staten Islanders have as many choices as they can.
And I think the unique circumstances that we have in our borough justify doing things differently there than we would do in the other commercial waste zones.
And so I urge my colleagues to be supportive of this legislation, and I look forward to hearing testimony from the department.
Thank you, Chair.